Upon settling in at another Supercenter I found the battery in our tow car had died. Was on its last legs. Just disconnected that baby and wheeled it in a sbopping cart into the auto center dept. $87 and 10 minutes later I was out the doorwith a direct replacement. Try that at a campground. And the net on the battery was closer to $50 if you consider the $30 or more I saved by not going to a campground.Just FWIT.Mike in GA

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Past President, Southeast Bus Nuts. Busin' for more than 15 years in a 1985 MC 96a3 with DD 8v92 and a 5 speed Allison c/r.

One of the main reasons I like to buy all my parts from Home Depot, Camping World, Wal Mart, etc so that you can easily find parts on the road. And along those lines using standardized parts-not something created that won't be able to be duplicated until you get back home. Good Luck, TomC

Guess I'm anti-Wallmart!!! after dark for sure! Here in quiet midwest. Last week shooting inside of store entrance. In last 6 months,cashiers adding cash to your credit cards but keeping for them selves, theft rings steeling merchandise,drug deals in parking lots and to top it off they built them with illegal workers from other countries. Funny they didn't show up when immigration came to check. I have been forced to stay a few hrs at one several yrs ago and about 2am the whole parking lot changed. So guess I'm the bad guy here. Stay alive and beaware! My opinion and experience only. Bob

Bob - I think its hit and miss depending on where you are at. When I'm in Orlando going to Walmart is like a 3rd world country. Your lucky if the cashier speaks english. In Wilmington NC its a date night for Wifey and I. Small town friendly employs and very helpful.

On our trips to the Bus Rallys in Arcadia, we traveled I-10 quite a bit. We went in early December and that is a horrible time to try Walmarts. The ones we used/tried in the eastern part of the country have very small parking lots and tons of Christmas traffic.

Other than that, almost all of our experiences have been good.

You have to be careful, as some Walmarts are posted with no overnight camping. That is usually the result of pressure from local campgrounds.

We try to buy the Walmart version of the atlas every couple of years so that we stay reasonably current with Walmart locations. Obviously, you can also do that on the Internet as you travel down the road if you have an air card.

In the area around the Smokey Mountain National Park overnighting in other than a campground is forbidden. The campground owners may have favored the local laws regarding that, but the businesses whose parking lots were used as campgrounds just got fed up with stupid people. Awnings would be out along with lawn chairs. People were spending days in Walmart and other parking lots not just overnight. But what prompted the local laws forbidding the practice was some of the people would dump their tanks in the storm sewers. A community that relies on tourism just cannot tolerate such stupid actions no matter how many dollars those folks intended to spend.

We have stayed in rest areas, Cracker Barrel lots, at various Walmarts, and truck stops. But because we do not intend to live in our coach like folks in a tent, and we want AC, TV, lights, and other battery depleting features we run our generator and because of the cost of fuel it is just as economical to be in a campground as running the generator. The only reason we do not overnight in a campground is there is none convenient to our stopping spot. But campgrounds are usually secure, relatively quiet and we have never had people banging on our door wanting money, nor are we concerned about our safety or the safety of our vehicles.

The best policy is to buy a WM road atlas and use its listing to stay only at Supercenters or Sam's. The other smaller stores usually have tiny parking lots and it is understandable that they don't want us using three or four spaces.

Overall we've had good experiences at WM and buy most of our travel supplies from them. What many RVers don't seem to understand is that permission is for parking, not camping, and they will eventually ruin it for the rest of us.

I also like the WM security cameras, lighting and security patrols. Far superior to most RV parks. I find rampant crime at a WM hard to believe. Sometimes the parking lot events are more entertaining than TV!!

Parking at WM means quick in and quick out without all the connecting and dis-connecting, I hate that part. We usually stop at an RV park every 4-5th night to dump and refill. I don't like RV parks because they are so often in out-of-the-way places and state parks are even worse.

Very few WMs prohibit overnight parking. When we find that we just move on to a truck stop or a casino, my wife loves casinos and usually wins!

There is always at least one hard-nose in every crowd. I really don't care who builds the parking lot as long as they are honest and willing to put in a full days work, not easy people to find these days.